"No," William replied. "They can't reduce the entire fight to something like that, Honor. But that isn't really what you were asking, and the truth is that you and Hamish have been two of our most potent weapons . . . and they can destroy our ability to use either of you against them effectively. It's stupid and vicious and small minded, but that doesn't mean it won't work. At the very least, it's almost certain to cripple you two while they drive through the naval cuts and the budget, but I'm sure they're hoping for a much longer-term effect, as well. And the beauty of it, from their perspective, is that the more vehemently you or any of your friends and allies deny it, the more surely a certain percentage of the electorate will believe it must be true."
Honor stared at him, then looked back at Hamish and saw the matching anguish in his eyes. His emotions were too painful for her to endure, and so she closed her empathic sense down until she felt only Nimitz, only his love and concern . . . and his helpless inability to fight this foe for her. She pulled her eyes away from Hamish, returning them to William, and fought to keep her shoulders from sagging still further.
"So what do we do?" she asked him softly.
"I don't know, Honor," he told her. "I just don't know."
Chapter Seven
"What do you think they're really up to, Guns?"
"Sir?" Lieutenant Commander Anna Zahn, Sidemore Navy, HMS LaFroye's tactical officer, looked up from her plot in some surprise. Captain Ackenheil wasn't much addicted to formalities, including the punctilious announcement of his presence whenever he arrived on the bridge, and she hadn't realized he was there.
"I asked what you think they're really up to," the Manticoran said, and gestured at her display. It was set to astrography mode and interstellar scale at the moment, and over a dozen stars were tagged with red, flashing icons.
"I don't really know, Sir," Zahn replied after a moment. She was one of the relatively few Sidemore officers serving aboard Royal Navy ships in senior positions. It wasn't because of any prejudice against Sidemorians, so much as it was the fact that there weren't all that many senior Sidemore officers serving anywhere. The entire Sidemore Navy was barely eight T-years old, which meant that Zahn was incredibly junior for her rank by Manticoran standards. She also happened to be extremely good at her job, which was how she'd come to be assigned as the tactical officer aboard the senior ship of CruDiv 237. Intellectually, she knew she wouldn't have been here if the Manties didn't believe she would be able to pull her own weight. It had been Manticoran policy since the beginning of Sidemore's alliance with the Star Kingdom to cross-assign officers whenever possible as one way to be sure both navies were familiar with RMN doctrine and procedures and also as a way to build the SN's experience base as rapidly as possible. Which didn't mean they were about to put anyone whose competence they doubted into a position as sensitive as that of a heavy cruiser's tactical officer. But whatever her brain might know, her emotions remained stubbornly unconvinced.
Maybe it wasn't just her. Maybe the entire Sidemore Navy—such as it was, and what there was of it—wasn't quite able to believe that anyone else would take it seriously at its young and tender age. She couldn't really speak for the rest of her home world's officer corps, but there were enough times she still felt like the new kid in class herself when she measured her own meager seven T-years of naval experience against the professional resume of someone like Ackenheil, who was very nearly three times her own age and a highly decorated combat veteran, to boot. Which made her a bit hesitant about offering an opinion, even when it was asked for. Particularly since she was the current officer of the watch, and she really should have been keeping her eye on the entire command deck rather than puzzling over reports she wasn't officially supposed to be worrying her head over, anyway. LaFroye was in a standard parking orbit, with her wedge down and little more than a skeleton watch, and she'd turned the con over to Lieutenant Turner, the astrogator (who was eleven T-years older than she was and had nine more T-years of experience), so it wasn't exactly as if she were neglecting her duties, but still . . .
Ackenheil's firm lips seemed to quiver, as if a smile threatened to take them over for just a moment, and she felt herself blush. She hated it when she blushed. It made her feel even more like a schoolgirl pretending to be a naval officer.
Jason Ackenheil managed—with difficulty—not to smile as Lieutenant Commander Zahn's cheekbones turned a delicate pink, and he scolded himself for wanting to. Well, not really wanting to, perhaps. It was just that the young Sidemore officer was so determined to get it right and so convinced that the Royal Manticoran Navy had made special allowances to put her into her present slot. The fact that she was an extraordinarily talented young woman, with one of the best sets of tactical instincts he'd ever seen, seemed to escape her somehow.
But perhaps he shouldn't blame her for that. The truth was that despite her ability, the Navy had indeed gone out of its way to assign SN officers to responsible slots aboard the RMN ships deployed to Sidemore Station, and some of them—no, be honest, all of them—were extremely short on experience, by Manticoran standards, for the positions they held. There was no way to avoid that. Unless they wanted the Sidemorians to have an entire navy which contained no officer above the rank of lieutenant, then the locals had no choice but to promote at a ridiculously rapid rate. Like the prewar Grayson Navy, the Sidemorians had acquired a skeletal core of Manticoran "loaners," but the bulk of their officer corps was being built from within, and assigning as many as possible of their more promising home-grown officers to Royal Navy ships was one way to transfer some of the much greater Manticoran experience to them.
Everyone knew that, and he'd been prepared to discover that Zahn was . . . less than totally qualified when he was first informed that she would be assigned to LaFroye. As it turned out, his worries had been unnecessary, as he'd realized within the first week after her arrival. That had been over six T-months ago, and his initial favorable impression of her had been amply confirmed over that period. Still, he had to admit that there were times when he felt rather more like her uncle than her CO. It was just that she was so damned young. He was more accustomed to junior-grade lieutenants her age than he was to lieutenant commanders, and it was difficult, sometimes, to keep that from showing, however competent the lieutenant commander in question might be. Which, he reminded himself a bit sternly, probably didn't do a thing to bolster her belief that she'd earned her position. Besides, he genuinely wanted to hear what she had to say. Young she might be, but he'd learned to respect her analytical abilities almost as much as her tactical skills, and he walked over to stand beside her station chair.
"No one really knows what they're planning, Commander," he said as he leaned over her shoulder to study the incidents displayed on her plot. "Certainly no one from ONI seems to have a clue! Nor, to be devastatingly honest about it, do I. Which is why I'd be interested in any hypotheses you might care to offer. You certainly couldn't do any worse job of reading their minds than the rest of us have been doing."
Zahn felt herself relax just a bit at the very slight twinkle in the captain's brown eyes. Then she glanced back at the data on her plot and frowned, this time thoughtfully.
"I suppose, Sir," she said slowly, "that it's possible they really are engaged in normal piracy-suppression operations."
"But you don't think they are," Ackenheil encouraged when she paused.
"No, Sir." She looked back up at him and shook her head. "Of course, I don't think anyone else really believes that's what's going on either, do they?"